|
Page 1 of 8
By Michael Eggebrecht
Trust and transparency haven't exactly characterized the relationship between cloud service providers and their customers thus far. Some CIOs, casting a wary eye on vendors' promises, practices and policies, have chosen to steer clear of the cloud altogether for now.
In an effort to pave the way for smoother relations, research firm Gartner formed the Gartner Global IT Council for Cloud Computing. The council, which is comprised of IT leaders at large global enterprises, as well as Gartner analysts, plans to issue proposals and recommendations to improve the situation.
The council's first output, which it has been working on for the past 8 months, according to Gartner VP Daryl Plummer, is a set of six rights that enterprises should insist upon when negotiating with service providers -- as well as one responsibility they should take on as cloud service users.
"Whether you are talking about how computing solutions are paid for, who delivers them, or what the contracts for those services look like, you have to deal with the trust that must be established between service providers and service consumers," wrote Plummer in a blog on the Gartner site. "One of the key ways of building trust is to agree on who gets what rights, and who takes on what responsibilities."
Both enterprises and vendors stand to benefit by taking these rights and responsibilities seriously, says Plummer. Enterprises will be better able to evaluate, select and consume cloud services. And while "respecting these rights will require effort and expense from providers," he adds, "securing the rights will encourage enterprises to put more of their business into the cloud." Good news for providers.
|
